RedState

The drill is called RAMPEx (Rapid Activation for Mass Prophylaxis Exercise), and it’s co-sponsored by the Department of Health and the Department of Homeland Security, which will be footing the estimated $1.4 million bill. Its main focus is “mass prophylaxis,” which is a fancy way of saying “getting life-saving drugs to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.” In order to test its response systems, the department has set up 30 points of distribution (PODs) and various command centers across all five boroughs to ensure that if a biological agent were released on the city, people would be able to get drugs quickly and easily. And once all the PODs are open for business, the drill is over. It started around 6:30am, and city officials estimate the whole song and dance will be done by around 3pm. The first thing that would happen in the event of an anthrax attack? The city would pretty much shut down. There would be an announcement on TV and radio with explicit instructions for where people should go if may have been affected. Since today is only a drill, the medicine headed for the POD we observedP.S. Read More: How New York City Simulates an Anthrax Attack

Paying ransoms, Europe bankrolls Qaeda terror

Law students across the country endured their own exam hell this week after a glitch in a widely used system to upload bar exam answers and essays temporarily failed, meaning their answers were not uploaded or sent to various state websites. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ExamSoft, the management platform software that handles digital bar exam submissions for multiple states, experienced a severe technical meltdown on Tuesday, leaving many graduates temporarily unable to complete the exams needed to practice law. The snafu also left bar associations from nearly 20 states with no choice but to extend their submission deadlines. Frustrated law students took to Twitter in the wake of the disaster to air their frustration with ExamSoft, creating hashtag topics like #Barghazi and #Barmagedon and likening the system failure to that of Obamacare website glitches late last year. Are the folks at #examsoft the same who did the Obamacare website, reads one tweet from a Twitter user named @Huerts31. Thanks #examsoft for turning the first day into Barghazi, said one exam taker under the Twitter handle @nickdaisydaisy. This is why its a good idea to bring your 1946 Smith Corona ‘silent’ portable typewriter with you. For backup. Read More: Bar Exam Fail: Law grads unable to submit completed tests due to software glitch | Fox News

Read More Has Nigeria got an image problem? During her 14-month captivity, whenever the kidnappers felt that attention had flagged, they erected a tent in the desert and forced Ms. Mariani to record a video message, showing her surrounded by her armed captors. A total of 11 former hostages grabbed by Qaeda units in Algeria, Mali, Niger, Syria and Yemen who agreed to be interviewed for this article reported a similar set of steps in the negotiations, beginning with an imposed period of silence. Video messages and telephone calls were infrequent, often months apart. The silence appeared purposeful, intended to terrorize the families of the captives, who in turn pressured their respective governments. In the Italian village of San Casciano in Val di Pesa, Ms. Mariani’s 80-year-old mother stopped sleeping in her bedroom, moving permanently to the couch in front of the television. Read More: Paying ransoms, Europe bankrolls Qaeda terror